In the Light of Day
by HardlyFatal
Summary: Brienne has a unique talent for saying the exact wrong thing to Jaime. Every. Damned. Time. COMPLETE
1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note: Another fic for JB Week, enjoy! The second and last chapter will come out on Sunday.**

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 _Lanniscorp Flagship office_

 _One day after the company Sevenmas party_

Brienne snuck into her office, amazed but relieved she'd managed to make her way through the maze of cubicles without being spotted by anyone. She hung her coat on the hook on the back of the door, then plopped down onto her desk chair and began rummaging through her tote bag for her water bottle and bottle of ibuprofen. The ones she'd taken at home either weren't working, or weren't strong enough to combat the platoon of tiny Strangers prodding the interior of her skull with their swords. It wasn't just her head, though. Her whole lower body ached. It was as if her hips and stomach had run a marathon. Not that that made sense… but so little had, that morning.

She took two more and washed them down with a gulp of water. Sighing, she reached into the tote bag one last time and withdrew her prize: a giant breakfast sandwich of fried egg, cheese, and a half-pound of bacon on a hard roll. She unwrapped it reverently, like it was the secret for making Valyrian steel, and took a huge bite.

The grease and protein and carbs would help soak up the last of the booze in her system. She placed the sandwich down on its spread-open wrapper on her desk and slumped in relief, eyes closed, just enjoying the act of chewing the fatty goodness, though it did make her already-sore temples ache more.

"That's one of the things I like about you," said Jaime, and Brienne shouted in alarm around her mouthful.

He was laying on her sofa, directly across from her desk. How had she managed to miss seeing his six-foot-two of leonine gorgeousness? But she knew the answer: she had been so enraptured by the prospect of yummy yummy food that she hadn't seen anything else. Hurriedly, she swallowed, wiped her mouth, then gulped from the water bottle again.

"Okay, two questions," she croaked. "First: one of the things you like about me— what? That's how you announce your presence? And second: why are you laying on the sofa in my office? Don't you have an office of your own? With a sofa of your own? Both of which, I might add, are far nicer and more comfortable than mine?"

"Okay, two answers," he replied easily, his grin making her stomach cartwheel in a way that had nothing to do with alcohol. Then he looked thoughtful. "No, you asked me five questions. Maybe six. But I might be able to answer them all with just two responses."

Brienne took a deep breath, praying for patience, and widened her eyes at him in annoyance.

"First, I like that you enjoy food, instead of just picking at it, or order low-calorie crap you hate."

"Life is too short to eat nasty stuff," she replied. Her mother had starved herself on a variety of diets her whole life in an attempt to maintain a svelte, model-thin figure. Not only had it not worked, it had wrecked her health and made her miserable. Brienne would rather be fat and happy. Though she wasn't quite fat, and she wasn't anywhere near happy. Mostly because of the crazy-hot nuisance sprawled across her sofa.

"Couldn't agree more," said Jaime. He sat up and planted his elbows on his knees, clasping his hands between them. "And second: I'm laying on your sofa instead of mine because I wanted to be sure I got to speak with you before we both got busy for the day."

"Alright," Brienne said, apprehension stealing in around the fog of weariness and lingering intoxication besetting her. "Why?"

He his expression went from faintly smiling— making that damned dimple appear— to faintly frowning. The dimple vanished, to her relief. She could never think straight when the dimple was present.

"Because of… last night."

"What about it?"

Just thinking about it made her want to cringe and maybe curl up under her desk to hide and/or sleep. Had she burst into song or something? She knew she'd not be able to withstand the seductive allure of the karaoke machine.

"You don't think that what happened merits some discussion?" Jaime looked surprised. No, he looked shocked .

Damn, Brienne thought. I must have gotten even more hammered than I realized. She must have danced on a table, maybe even stripped. She dropped her face into her hands and couldn't hold back an embarrassed laugh.

"I would rather not think about it ever again," she mumbled into her palms. "It was a bad idea. I knew it would be awful, but it ended up being even worse than I thought. And I was already pretty sure it would be terrible. God, it made me so sick. I still feel nauseous." She heaved a huge sigh of mortification. "Can we make a sacred pact between us to never mention it again?"

He didn't answer right away, nor for a good long time, either. After the silence stretched from 'awkward' to 'what the hell', Brienne pried her hands off her face and looked across the office at him. Then she blinked a few times while she processed what she was seeing, because Jaime had gone pale. No, beyond pale. He had gone gray , and the faint lines he'd begun to develop when he hit thirty-five seemed to carve deeper as she watched. He looked… hurt? No. He looked devastated .

"Are you okay?" she asked, concerned.

He shot her the angriest are-you-fucking-kidding-me look she'd ever been on the receiving end of, and stood.

"I'm great," he growled. "I'm fucking awesome."

With a last searing glare, he strode from her office, slamming the door shut behind him.

Damn . What the hell had she done last night, if he were that worked up over it? A thought occurred to her, and she went cold all over: had she made a pass at him? Oh, gods. She imagined her huge ungainly body leaning in close to him, putting her freckled, ugly face near his, and felt ill. If she had done any of that… well, no wonder he was upset.

Was her employment in jeopardy? Should she apologize to him? The humiliation she'd feel, having to abase herself to keep her job— and beforehim , Jaime, the man she'd fallen in love with in spite of her best efforts to keep at a distance— intensified her nausea. Before her on the desk, her breakfast sandwich lurked with malevolent intent, its previously-delicious aroma now only wafting the scent of bad decisions and regret into her nostrils.

Brienne lurched to her feet, one hand to her stomach and the other over her mouth, and headed for the bathroom with as much speed as she could manage without making herself ralph right there in the hallway. Just before she reached the restroom, she caught sight of Jaime in his office, his desk having a perfectly clear line-of-sight to the ladies', because of course it did. He stared at her face, green behind its muffling hand, and his expression— still gray— somehow became even more angry.

Brienne slapped the door open and rushed in, barely making it to the handicapped stall before letting it all fly. And boy, did it fly. Her sole bite of breakfast sandwich, last night's shrimp, yesterday's lunch and breakfast, and then dinner from the night before that, and the cake from her eleventh birthday party, and possibly the first pablum her mother had ever given her when she was an infant…

When she was done, she felt as if someone had taken a post-hole digger to her torso, hollowed-out and sore from shoulders to hips from the wrenching spasms. The bathroom still rang with the echoes of the ghastly horking sounds she'd made. Lifting and turning her head, which felt like a sunflower on a tiny stem, unwieldy and top-heavy, she saw a half-dozen coworkers standing outside the stall, staring in open amazement.

"Tyrion said you should just go home," whispered Jeyne in a tone that was almost… reverent. Brienne couldn't blame her; she'd just been witness to a gold-medal-in-the-Olympics amount of vomiting.

"Tyrion is a fucking genius," Brienne replied, heaving herself to her feet. She flushed all the evil away, then staggered through the little clot of women to the sink. She washed her hands, then her face, then rinsed and spat a few dozen times until her mouth didn't feel quite so revolting, then began to chew the piece of gum Jeyne had pushed into her hand.

When she was done she stood, threw her shoulders back, and marched back to her office, carefully avoiding looking anywhere near Jaime's direction. She collected the rest of the sandwich— now that she had barfed, she was getting hungry again— and her water bottle and Pycellenol and shoved it all in her bag and hurried from the office.

She ate the sandwich on the subway, washed down another two pills— since she'd thrown up the previous ones— gulped the rest of the water, and by the time she got home, felt almost human again. She brushed her teeth for ten minutes, then stripped down to her panties and fell into bed like a sawed-down redwood.

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 _Lannister Enterprises Flagship office_

 _Three months later, give or take_

"Where are you going?"

Brienne froze, swearing viciously under her breath. Almost; she'd almost made it out the door without anyone seeing her but her usual 'good' luck was with her; not only was she seen, but by the last person she wanted to see her: Jaime.

They'd gotten on well the first year of her employment there at Lannister Enterprises. When she'd been promoted and had to work with him on a daily basis, they'd actually become friendly, often having lunch together and sharing some vague details of their lives with each other. He was magnificently gorgeous, and Brienne… wasn't. She held no illusions that he had any interest in her beyond maintaining a positive work environment.

Her brain held no such illusions, that was; her heart , however, hadn't gotten the memo, and had tripped and fallen directly into a big messy puddle of love for him. She'd never realized what a passionate person she was, or maybe Jaime just inspired her to feel more strongly for him than she had about, well, anything else in her life. Ever. Because each time she clapped eyes on him, she had to fight back one of two reactions: fling herself at him and tear off his trousers, or flee.

It had gotten to the point where she'd tried to establish a little distance between them, out of a sense of self-preservation, because she felt like she was losing her mind. She was twenty-eight years old, she had a master's degree, she was an executive in one of the wealthiest and most powerful corporations in Westeros. She couldn't pine away for an unattainable man. It was ludicrous.

And yet.

Distancing herself from Jaime hadn't worked; he'd just become more persistent in getting her to agree to what he wanted, which was usually to have lunch with him, or dinner if they worked late, or to talk with him after they'd exhausted their work-related topic.

But then, the Christmas party had happened— Brienne had never gotten a straight answer out of anyone about what, precisely, she had done during it, after she'd made the critically unwise decision to have a second cup of punch— and the very unpleasant and confusing scene with Jaime— and he hadn't been the same since. She'd made tentative forays to return to their previous camaraderie a few times after that awful morning, but if anything, he'd just become more chilly and hostile. She'd given up after a month of being frostily rebuffed.

Now, at the end of February, with the exception of the briefest interactions for work purposes that he could manage, the almost complete absence of him in her life ached. She felt like she was missing something important, like a hand, and only he could fill the space.

Brienne had started feeling poorly a week ago, nauseated at odd times and strangely tired when she was usually fine and repulsed by foods she usually liked.

When her breasts started feeling sore, she knew something was wrong. She'd managed to get an appointment with her doctor earlier that day, and now, at nearly three o'clock, she was almost, almost free—

"You never leave early," Jaime continued, almost accusingly.

"Doctor appointment," she replied, turning to face him. Ah, he looked amazing— again, as always— in a navy suit that turned his eyes from green to teal and made his hair seem more golden, somehow. Brienne repressed a yearning sigh and hung her tote bag on the door handle so she could put her coat on.

He squinted at her, as if he were trying to peer inside her head for the answer he wanted.

"Not to go to a job interview somewhere?"

She gaped at him. "Why would you think that?"

He crossed his arms— making his shoulders and chest seem wider, ungh— and tapped a foot, still squinting. "Your work seems… uninspired lately. As if you've lost interest."

That's because I have hardly seen you in three months and it's killing me .

"I haven't felt well," she told him, and backed it up with a wince when she drew her coat closed and buttoned it— even that faint pressure of cloth against her breasts made them ache.

"What's wrong?" he demanded, stepping closer, and when she looked up from buttoning the coat, it was to find him looking at her with concern, all remoteness or hostility gone, just like he would have before the stupid Christmas party.

"I don't know," she said with asperity. "Which is why I'm going to the doctor." She glanced at the clock on the wall. "Which is why I'm about to belate to the doctor," she corrected herself, and dashed out the door.

At Dr. Tarly's office, she peed in a cup and let them draw blood and take her weight and blood pressure and temperature. She went through work emails on her phone while waiting for the doctor himself to make an appearance. When he did, it was with a puzzled frown on his pleasant face.

"Hi, Brienne," he said with a smile. "So, you told the nurse that nothing had changed in your life since your last visit, but you didn't mention that you had become sexually active, so I ran the usual battery of tests for sexually transmitted diseases. Fortunately, they were all negative."

Brienne stared at him. "I haven't become sexually active, why would you say that?"

He stared back at her. "Because you're pregnant."

Brienne stared some more, and then laughed. "No, no, no," she said merrily, "you've gotten some sort of weird false positive. You should run that again. Do you need more pee? I can give you another cup—"

"No, what you gave was fine. I've added a pregnancy test to the bloodwork, for confirmation," he said. "But our urine tests are very accurate, to 99.99%. Which means there's only a one one-hundredth of a percent chance of it having another cause, like an ovarian tumor."

"It's a tumor," she said automatically. "It has to be a tumor. There's no other explanation. It's impossible."

"Have you had your uterus removed?" Dr. Tarly asked her.

"…no."

"Fallopian tubes?"

"…no."

"Are you on any extremely effective birth control, like the shot or an implant?"

"…no. I'm not on any birth control."

"Then it not only can be, it is." He smiled at her, very kindly, very patiently. He must have plenty of disbelieving women come through here.

"But… I haven't had sex," Brienne said, incredulous.

"Clearly, you have," said Dr. Tarly, and then looked worried. "You don't recall having sex?"

"No! I would remember!" she exclaimed. Then, "…wouldn't I?"

He looked grave as he considered. "You're about three months along… did you lose any time around the holidays? Perhaps due to heavy drinking? It happens sometimes."

Her breath started coming faster as she thought back to how blitzed she'd gotten at the Christmas party. Could something have happened then?

"Oh, gods," she breathed. This was a catastrophe. "Oh, gods ."

She sat there, just breathing and staring at him in horror, until he shifted uneasily from one foot to another.

"You are very surprised about this, I see," Dr. Tarly said quietly. "The bloodwork results will be back in a day or two; we'll call as soon as we have them. Until then… I'll give you some literature about your options. You should try to remember and if you can't, well... perhaps… the goldcloaks…?"

Numbly, Brienne accepted the pamphlets he handed her, jamming them into her purse without looking at them, and shuffled from the examination room. Out in the waiting room, the receptionist tried to schedule her for another appointment, but Brienne just gave a vague wave and wandered out while the poor woman was still mid-sentence.

Somehow, she made it home safely. She sat at the kitchen table for what ended up being a few hours, staring blankly until her stomach demanded some food. By then, she had cobbled together somewhat of a plan for how to proceed.

Step one: find out who has knocked me up.

Brienne twitched. The idea that she had had sex with an unknown man made her skin crawl; the idea that he had impregnated her made her organs crawl. She felt like sand-blasting her innards to scour them clean of Mystery Man's biological material.

Step two: panic.

Not helpful, but she prided herself on being a realist, and realistically speaking, there was going to be a significant amount of panicking happening.

Step three: to be or not to be?

That certainly was the question, and a more unwelcome one, Brienne could not imagine. Never had she thought she'd be in this predicament. Who in the world would have had sex with her? Especially while she was so blotto she didn't remember it the next day? She dug the heels of her hands into her eye sockets, trying desperately to remember something, anything, from that night.

She'd arrived. She'd eaten a few mini-quiches and had a cup of Tyrion's viciously strong punch. Then, already feeling woozy and knowing she ought not have more, she'd finished a second cup while talking— reluctantly— with… Ronnet Connington? Yes, Ronnet, and he'd been as awful as he usually was.

She'd gotten some shrimp cocktail, then returned to continue her conversation with him, but he excused himself and left. She'd finished her plate of shrimp… then talked to… someone? That's where it got hazy, and didn't clear up again until she woke hours later in the supply closet.

Who could she ask? She did not want to have to ask a lot of people. Hey, do you have any idea which guy I might have fucked at the Christmas party? No? Okay, thanks! If she could get away with only asking one— at most, two— people, that would be at least slightly less appallingly horrific.

As she apathetically boiled pasta and poured a jar of tomato sauce over it, she whittled down her list of potentials to Jaime and Tyrion. Instinctively, she shied away from Jaime; how could she possibly stand before him and admit that not only had she been grievously intoxicated, but so much so that she had had sex with… someone… and couldn't remember a thing about it? It was bad enough she had to yearn for him in silence, knowing she'd never get to so much as lay one lustful finger on his delectable self. Having him look at her with disgust and scorn would break her.

She sat and shoveled pasta into her mouth, chewing resentfully.

Tyrion it is, she thought grimly. The winner by default. Lucky fella.


	2. Chapter 2

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 _Lannister Enterprises Flagship office_

 _The next day_

"Tyrion, this is a very serious conversation we're going to have, so you need to not crack jokes or be an ass like I know you enjoy so much."

"Okay, fine, yes, just get started," he replied, leaning back in his chair and tapping a pen on his desk impatiently.

"The Christmas party," she began. "Remember it?"

"Yeeeeeees," Tyrion said slowly, clearly humoring her.

"I don't."

"…what?'

"I don't remember it," Brienne said. "Well, I remember arriving, and having some hors d'oeuvres, and a few glasses of punch. I talked with Ron Connington for five minutes— which was six minutes too long— and after he walked away I had some shrimp, I think… and then nothing."

Tyrion had straightened from his slump to lean forward, watching her very intently. "Nothing at all?"

She shook her head. "Next I can recall, I was in a supply closet, laying on a pallet of paper towels, with the world's most crippling hangover ever suffered by a human being."

"What did you do then?" he asked. She'd never heard him this serious, and it was beginning to freak her out even more than she was already freaked out, which was a _lot_ , and _oh, gods_ , this was going be a disaster, wasn't it?

"I went home. Showered. Took a handful of ibuprofen, drank all the water I could hold. Passed out. Woke up, came to work." She paused, thinking. "Had a weird conversation with Jaime. Threw up everything I've eaten since grade school. Went home early, slept some more. Finally felt better the next day."

"What _exactly_ are you asking me, Brienne?" he asked when she fell silent at last.

"Well," she began, knotting her fingers together in anxiety, "I was wondering if you could tell me what I did that night? In particular, uh, who I did it _with_?"

"Why?"

Boiling lava cascaded over Brienne's face, or at least felt like it did. The blush that leapt to her face felt like it was scalding her skin off.

"Because I'm pregnant," she whispered miserably.

Tyrion stared at her with the unwavering stare of a serial killer looking at his next victim. Then he jabbed a few buttons on his phone and said into the intercom, "Come to my office. Now. It's Brienne."

"What?" Brienne squawked. "I'm not keeping it! Whoever it was can never know! This is a secret, a horrible, terrible secret that I must take to my grave!"

The door flew open to reveal Jaime, breathless from the dash from his office down the hall.

" _What?_ " he demanded before noticing Brienne trying to shrink back into her chair. His expression went from irritated to the cold fury she had become used to in the past few months. "Ah. What did the doctor say? Are you dying?"

"I wish," she mumbled, averting her gaze because he was so handsome when he was angry that it was like staring at the sun during an eclipse. "I was hoping for a nice fatal tumor."

"Shut the door and sit," Tyrion commanded his brother. Jaime stalked forward and took the other chair in front of his brother's desk, shooting Brienne an unfriendly glance as he did.

"Jaime, it appears that Brienne, here, has no memory of what happened at the Christmas party," Tyrion said.

Jaime went very still. "No… memory…?" He stared at her in amazement, and his chilly antipathy morphed into incredulity and… relief? "None at _all_?"

"Not a thing," she confirmed. "Punch, then shrimp cocktail, then nothing."

"Now tell him why this matters," Tyrion said grimly.

Brienne sucked in a horrified breath. "I absolutely will _not_ ," she declared. "It's none of his business. It's not even any of _your_ business, I just didn't know who else to ask."

"I think it might be his business more than you realize," said Tyrion, and the way he was staring at her had… meaning. As if he already knew something she didn't. She stared at him, aware from her peripheral vision that Jaime was looking back and forth between her and his brother as if he were at a tennis match. Tyrion flicked his eyebrows up, and suddenly Brienne understood _everything_.

"Oh, gods," she said. "You cannot be serious." He said nothing, just kept staring at her. "You absolutely cannot be serious. It is _not possible_."

She had not only had sex the night of the Christmas party, she had had it with Jaime? _Jaime_ had gotten her pregnant? With sex? Tyrion wanted her to believe that Jaime had put what she was sure was the most gorgeous penis in the solar system inside her, and thrust it into her until he came, and filled her with semen, which then decided it liked its new home and wanted to stay a while. For, say, nine months.

She had gone breathless a few thoughts earlier, and couldn't tell if it was from panic or arousal at the dirty images her brain pelted her with as it always did when she thought about Jaime, because he was incredibly beautiful and also wonderful and _gods_ , she loved him, and this was a disaster of cataclysmic proportions.

"Will one of you idiots please tell me what Tyrion cannot possibly be serious about?" Jaime demanded. "I actually have work to do today—"

"She's pregnant."

Aaaaand the lava was back. Brienne closed her eyes and wished the windows in Tyrion's office opened; she could have cheerfully clog-danced out of one at that moment, in desperate pursuit of the soothing embrace of death. She cracked an eye and peered at the windows anyway; she was pretty strong, maybe she could slam her shoulder against one until it broke and _then_ leap out?

"I'll go work in your office," Tyrion said to Jaime. "You two… talk."

Brienne shut her eye again and just sat there. She did not know what to say, literally had no words. She thought back to the weird conversation with Jaime on the morning after the party, and what she'd told him, and how ill and upset he had looked in reaction.

 _You were upset when it happened to you,_ she thought. _You lost your virginity to a guy so drunk he couldn't tell if you were a man or not, and when he realized it was you, he was so disgusted he almost puked right there._

It had been the worst moment of her life… until now. This, somehow, felt even worse. Because the one who had been hurt was Jaime, the person she least wanted to ever make feel anything but good. Tears formed behind her closed lids, and with them came even more self-loathing than she usually felt. Which was a lot.

"Brienne," Jaime said slowly, after quite a while passed without either of them speaking. "We have to talk about this eventually."

"No," she replied. "We really don't."

He huffed out a breath. "Brienne—"

Gods, she hated how he said her name. Even when he was annoyed by her, or impatient, there was something about the R that sounded like a growl, and the N rolled off his lips like a moan, and just that was enough to turn her on.

"I'm sorry," she blurted. "I didn't… I need you to know that I didn't try to do any of this. Not only with the… seducing. I didn't even think I _could_ seduce anyone. Least of all you. You must be in a serious drought, if you did it with me. Haha. Anyway, I also didn't plan the, the impregnating thing. Why didn't we use a condom? I always use a condom. Well, I did, when I was having sex regularly, but I haven't been with anyone since I met you, and—"

"Brienne."

"I don't want you to think I'm trying to trap you," she continued. "Because I'm _not_. I don't expect a thing from you, I won't even ask you for half the fee, I'll pay for it all myself, you don't have to worry about a thing. I'll even sign something, if you want."

She gazed at him earnestly, wanting him to believe her. She didn't think she could bear it if he thought her the type who would get pregnant to force a man— him— to marry her. The idea turned her stomach, or perhaps— no, it was that time of the afternoon when she usually got nauseous. Most woman had morning sickness; Brienne had afternoon sickness. She dug in her pocket for one of the ginger candies she'd taken to bringing with her for exactly this point in the day.

"What fee do you mean?" he asked, and she looked up from tossing the candy wrapper in the bin to find him watching her with an odd, cautious expression.

"For the— the termination," she stammered around the candy. "I was going to make the appointment once I got back to my office. There's no way I can raise a baby with you."

How could she maintain such a close relationship, an intimate relationship, and yet not be with him truly? How could she share a child with him, but nothing else? She already felt sick with longing for him most of the time. Anything more would destroy her.

Jaime flinched, and that devastated gray expression she remembered from the day after the party came over his face again. Brienne realized, too late, how it had sounded. Pain lanced through her at the knowledge that she'd just hurt him terribly. Again.

"Oh, no. Jaime, no. I didn't mean it that way." She couldn't stop herself from reaching for his nearest hand, clasping it in both of her own. "I didn't mean that you'd be a bad father, or that I wouldn't want to have a child with you in particular. Please don't be hurt, I didn't mean it like that. I didn't."

The color returned to his face, and he gave a slow nod. She became aware of how desperately she was clutching at his hand, and tried to withdraw her own, but he wouldn't release her, and even put his other hand around hers, trapping both of them. She tugged harder, but he just gave her a sad little smile and held tighter. She gave up with a sigh, and forged ahead with what she had to say.

"Now that the empty spaces have been filled in, I realize that when you were in my office, the next day, you wanted to talk about… about the… uh, the sex. But I didn't know that we'd _had_ any. I thought you were going to poke fun at me for being drunk. I thought maybe I'd photocopied my ass or you'd found out about my love for karaoke in the worst way possible and you were going to scold me for being unprofessional."

She knew she was babbling, but couldn't seem to stop herself.

"So when I said it was a bad idea, I meant drinking Tyrion's evil punch, not the having sex with you. The drinking was what made me sick. Not you. I didn't want to talk about it because I, uh, well, you might have noticed I have this little avoidance problem. I wanted to pretend I'd never drunk anything and then acted like a crazy person, not pretend we hadn't. Uh. _Done it_. " She paused. "I wondered why you looked so…"

"So…?"

"You looked like I'd hit you," said Brienne miserably. "With a _truck_." He was watching her closely, his face carefully blank for once. "I really didn't mean to hurt you. Do you believe me? You're my friend… I think. _Are_ we friends? I've never been able to tell. We just work together, and have lunch a lot."

"And sex," he added. "We have lunch, and sex."

"Just the once. Apparently. And I don't even remember it. Was it any good, at least? It couldn't have been, if I was that out of my head." She grimaced. "Even if having sex with you _had_ been awful, I wouldn't have said all those things to you. That would just be cruel. I would never be cruel to you on purpose, Jaime, I—"

 _Love you,_ she almost said, but cut herself off before she said something truly humiliating.

…even _more_ humiliating, that was. She was slowly but steadily digging herself into a profound pit of despairing mortification and she was pretty sure she'd never be able to climb back out. She peeped up at him, trying to gauge whether he was offended or amused by her inept ramblings.

His beautiful mouth curled up at the ends. _Amused, then._

"For the record, I'm amazing at sex," he said, "or so you said. Quite a few times, in fact. At the top of your lungs, too."

Brienne's face felt covered in lava yet again. He only grinned, delighted at her awkward discomfort.

"I did not," she whispered sullenly.

"How would you know?" was his prompt reply. "Anyway, out of curiosity, what _would_ you have said if it were awful?"

Heat glowed in her cheeks. "I would have come up with some excuse about needing to leave immediately for a sabbatical, and fled. Then I would have quit my job and emigrated to Bayasabhad, never to be seen again."

Jaime's smile made her lungs feel as if they were somersaulting around each other. "And what would you have said if it _weren't_ awful?"

Brienne blinked. "I'd, ah, probably ask if you wanted to do it again? And then I'd quit and emigrate to Bayasabhad, because of course you wouldn't, you were drunk too, and you'd have to be, wouldn't you? There's no way you would ever—"

"I wasn't drunk."

"—knowingly have sex with me, and I'm going to have to quit anyway, aren't I?" she continued. "I can barely even look at you, I'm so embarrassed, and it'll be worse… after. After the termination. How can I keep working with you? No, I— what?"

"I wasn't drunk, Brienne."

 _Well, that didn't make any sense._

"…high, then? I didn't peg you for a pothead, but—"

"I wasn't high, either. I wasn't on anything at all. Hadn't had anything but coffee since lunch, in fact."

She squinted doubtfully at Jaime, trying to figure him out. He sighed, his eyes so soft and green and intent, feeling as if they were piercing her, piercing the armor she wore around herself for protection, piercing her heart.

"Okay, picture this scenario. You work with a woman who is smart and competent and funny and kind and… pretty neurotic, really, but somehow appealing in spite of it. You fall in love with her, and try to make her understand that, but she is so oblivious she just thinks you're joking or making fun of her. Nothing you do or say convinces her you mean it."

The armor thickened, redoubled, told her in a nasty little Gollum voice that it couldn't be, that she was imagining Jaime's words, that he was lying, he _had_ to be, no one could feel that way about her, _Jaime_ couldn't feel that way about her—

"Finally, at the Christmas party, she seems to have loosened up. She seems to understand that you're flirting with her, at last. She even flirts back. She suggests you find the closest private room and make out, and of course you agree, and it goes from making out to making love in about thirty seconds. You're on the sofa in your brother's office, and you're fucking each other stupid, moaning and clawing at each other like animals, and you come so hard you think you're dying, and it's even better than you fantasize about while jerking off. You tell her you love her, and she says it back, and seems happy. Really, really happy. You're really happy, too, and really tired from the world's most amazing orgasm, so you fall asleep."

She licked her lips, because they were dry, and so was her mouth. Between her legs wasn't dry, though, not by a long shot. It had started getting not-dry the moment he said he had fallen in love with her, and just gotten more not-dry from there, and now Brienne worried she might slide from her chair on a wave of liquid desire for him.

"But when you wake up, she's gone, and you can't find her anywhere. She's not answering her phone and you don't have her home address, and HR is gone for the day. You have no way to contact her, though you can't wait to see her, you realize you have no option but to talk to her the next morning."

Brienne was barely breathing, shallow pants issuing from her lips as her mind whirled.

"You go to sleep hopeful that your future will be full of her, that you can start dating and move in together and get married, because you love her more than ever, now that you know what it's like to hold her and kiss her and be inside of her."

His gaze fixed on her lips, and she could actually _see_ his pupils dilate. Hadn't he already been the sexiest human on the planet? How had he gotten even sexier in the last few minutes?

"When you see her again, though, she doesn't seem all that interested in you anymore. As in, not at all. She tells you that sex with you sickened her and she wants to forget it ever happened, and your heart basically breaks. And after saying all of this, she proves it to you by heading into the bathroom and proceeding to puke for twenty straight minutes."

 _Brienne's_ heart was basically breaking, to hear him speak of what he'd gone through, and knowing she had been the cause of it, however unwitting.

"She spends the next two months treating you like you're crazy for not just shrugging it off like she did. And you tell yourself you're a fool for falling in love with someone who could treat you like that, _again_ , and for not being able to stop loving her in spite of it."

Knowing she'd hurt him made _her_ hurt. Her chest was aching like he'd cracked it open with a crowbar or, perhaps, a tire iron. A rusty one.

"I'm sorry," she whispered, gazing at the tangle of their hands, greedily soaking up the heat of his skin as tears rolled down her face. "I'm so sorry, Jaime. I'd never— you— I—"

Then her brain finally caught up to her ears. She tugged on her hands and reluctantly he released them. "Did you… did you say you _loved_ me?"

"Not loved, past tense. Love, present tense. I love you." His eyes were steady on hers, watching for her reaction. She just wished she had one, but all she could do was sit, stunned, like a steer in an abattoir.

The silence stretched as it had before, until it went past 'awkward' directly into 'weird'.

"We don't have to take things quickly," he said quietly, almost whispering. "I can wait for you; gods know, I've been waiting for a year. I can wait some more. As long as you don't leave. Or, you can leave Lanniscorp, we can't hold you hostage, but… not leave King's Landing. So I can still see you every day. I need to see you every day. Weekends are shitty for me, I spend them missing you and wishing you'd get it through your thick head that I love you but you're so resistant, you don't see or hear anything but—"

He cut off suddenly, as if just aware that he was rambling, and gave Brienne that sheepish grin he always did when embarrassed, glancing up at her through golden lashes. Her heart squeezed; in her lap, her hands were folded so tightly together, fingers woven, that her knuckles ached. And she still had no words to say. Her head was empty.

"I'd never tell you what to do with your body," Jaime continued after a few moments of more silence. "But I don't want you to end this pregnancy. I meant it, before. I want to marry you. Have children with you. The fact that the only time we were together, you ended up pregnant… doesn't that feel right, to you? Inevitable?"

 _Yes_ , wailed her heart, but her brain was still frozen, trying desperate to compute and wade through all the data shoved into it.

When she didn't reply, Jaime continued. "We don't have to get married right away. Or ever, if you really don't want to. But I'd be with you every step of the way, in whatever capacity you'll permit. I won't just be some weekend parent who never does his share to raise his child. But this might be my only opportunity ever to be a father, Brienne, so I'm asking you… please just give it some thought."

She sucked in a breath, about to speak, but he forged ahead and finished with, "Do you think you could ever come to love me? If I stop being an ass all the time?" He shot her a rueful smile. "I can't promise success, but… I'll try my hardest?"

Instead of speaking, Brienne burst out laughing, slightly hysterically, because it was all so ludicrous. _Come_ to love him? She'd loved him for a year, almost from the moment of meeting him, had been languishing for love of him like some ridiculous maiden in a romance novel. When the bout of humor ended, she scrubbed at her eyes with her sweater cuffs, but when she looked at him once more, his face was doing that gray thing, and she realized that yet again she'd expressed herself in the exact worst way and made him think she hated him.

"Oh, gods," she moaned. How to repair this? How to explain herself? Her instincts were terrible. But every time she hurt him it felt like she was dying. She had to do something to make him see, to understand that it was because she was horrible at interpersonal communication and not because of anything he had done or said.

Brienne found herself slipping to the floor at Jaime's feet, kneeling and sitting back on her heels. While he watched in astonishment, she placed her hands on his knees, then curled forward to rest her forehead on them.

"I'm going to say this now and it will serve as a… a touchstone for all our future discussions, alright?" she said, not really expecting an answer and plowing ahead. "I am awful at emotions. And talking about them. And feeling them. I'm awful at talking, in general. I have no idea how you have come to l-love me—"

There, she stumbled on the word, uncertain to actually state such an improbable thing.

"—because I act like a bumbling idiot most of the time. But if I say something that hurts you, that seems unkind or critical of you, you need to know that it's _not_. I wasn't laughing at the idea of loving you, just now. I've loved you for a year. I've loved you _forever_. I don't even remember what it was like to _not_ love you. My life before meeting you seems like a story that happened to someone else, sometimes…"

She sniffled and felt Jaime's hand come to rest on her head. It was trembling.

"Bri—" he began, but she squeezed his knees and he stopped.

"So from now on, if it seems like I'm saying something mean or insensitive, it's just because I'm stupid, not because I don't love you." She forced herself to raise her head and meet his eyes. He was staring down at her, shock and relief stark on his face. "I will always love you, Jaime."

He swallowed heavily and closed his eyes, shoulders slumping as he let out a weary breath. When he looked at her again, his eyes seemed to glow. Years appeared to melt away as happiness pervaded him. His hand, on her head, stroked down to cup her cheek, thumb moving in a caress over her lips.

"You're not going to start singing, are you? There's no karaoke machine in here," he asked, and Brienne had to laugh, because she knew she was a very poor singer. The one time Jaime had heard her, he'd likened her efforts to 'the mating call of a dying aurochs' and he hadn't been far off from the truth.

She licked her dry lips and decided to try cracking a joke; if there were one person who might appreciate her attempt, it was Jaime because somehow— miraculously— loved her. He _loved_ her.

"I hope our baby gets his musical ability from you, then," she croaked. There, that wasn't too bad.

Jaime chuckled accordingly. His other hand came to her face as well, cupping it as he leaned forward. "No," he said, very firmly. "I want her to take after you in every way."

He kissed her to punctuate it, just a soft press of lips that made Brienne wonder if her lungs were having a seizure. It felt better than anything ever had, the sensation imprinting itself on her mind, pleasure overwhelming her overburdened synapses, and tears overflowed her eyes once more.

When he pulled away, it was with an expression of frustrated affection, fond but resigned to her antics. He swiped at her newly tear-wet cheeks with his fingertips.

"Surely I don't kiss so badly that it makes you cry?" he murmured, rubbing the tip of his nose against hers.

She dropped her head back down on her hands, still clutching his knees. "I am very overwhelmed right now. Plus, hormones. Being pregnant can make you very emotional. Who knew?"

He stood, tugging her to her feet and drawing her over to Tyrion's couch (which was better than both of theirs). Brienne let him arrange their torsos and limbs until he had managed to fit both of them on it, laying across it all tangled together. She buried her face against his throat and inhaled the wildly appealing scent of him that she'd only ever managed to inhale on a few rare moments when she'd permitted herself the luxury of being within two feet of him. Slowly, her heart rate and anxiety lowered.

Which was when Tyrion returned, his expression at first trepidatious but quickly shifting to irritated when he saw them lying down in silence, hands clasped across Jaime's chest with fingers threaded.

"Well?" he demanded testily. "Am I going to be an uncle?"

Jaime looked to her for the answer. Brienne raised herself on an elbow, feeling weirded out by trying to converse with Jaime and Tyrion while laying down.

"Yes," she said, and Jaime's face went from inquiring to relieved, his arms clasping more tightly around her.

"Good," said Tyrion, smiling broadly for only a moment before his expression went stern. "Now get the hell out of my office, I'm busy."

"But we like this sofa best," Jaime pretended to pout. "This is where the magic happened!"

Tyrion's forehead puckered as he riddled that out, and when he did, it was to sputter, "Why didn't you tell me that before? Now I have to get a new one!"

"I'll take it," Jaime said grandly, "And I'll buy the new one for you." To Brienne, as they unwound themselves from each other to stand, he added, "We'll need something big enough for both of us in our place anyway."

" _Our_ place?"

He slung an arm around her waist and drew her close, nuzzling his face into her neck while Tyrion looked more and more disgusted. "I'm not spending another night without you, ever again."

"If you do not vacate my office immediately, I will assault both of you," Tyrion announced.

"How, by chewing our kneecaps off?" Jaime quipped, but permitted himself to be shoved toward the door by his loving brother, who— long used to fielding jokes about his stature— only rolled his eyes.

Brienne thought it wise to follow of her own volition. "Uh, thank you," she said to Tyrion. "And… sorry to involve you. And your couch."

He let the faux annoyance drop from his face and smiled up at her. "I'm getting a niece or nephew out of it, it's worth some involvement and a couch."

Then he slammed the door in her face.

She turned to find Jaime watching her with a soft smile on his face instead of his more usual smirk.

"What?" she demanded, self-conscious.

He shrugged, then grinned. "I love you. Let's go home and fuck."

Brienne thought it over for a minute, her brain as always taking some time to process hard-to-believe information. Then she grinned back and said, "Okay, let's go home and fuck."

So they did.


End file.
